KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- According to a new nationwide survey commissioned by the HNTB Companies, more than 24 million Americans -- 11 percent of the adult population -- are using buses, light rail, commuter rail and other forms of public transportation more than they did last year. An even greater percentage of survey respondents, 16 percent, said they expect their ridership to increase in the coming year. Nearly one in three Americans (32 percent) said their biggest motivator to choose public transportation over driving would be high gas prices. While conventional wisdom holds Americans would find it frustrating to give up the convenience of a car, the survey found the second most popular reason someone would choose public transportation over driving is more convenience (14 percent). Avoiding traffic (5 percent) was a distant third, followed by concern for the environment (4 percent). The survey also found more than twice as many men as women (15 percent versus 7…

Developers building near transit would save money and those whose locations encourage driving would pay more under a new fee system being considered by San Francisco officials. Since the 1950s, U.S. cities have calculated developments’ transit impacts by how long drivers must wait at a traffic light. San Francisco officials want to change the formula, basing impacts on the number of new automobile trips generated — something routinely calculated by developers. The result, proponents say, could encourage building in transit-heavy, walkable areas. Currently, impact fees are often negotiated with developers on a case-by-case basis, leading to project delays. The new formula would be more straightforward for developers, easier for the public to understand and would speed up the planning process. "City may ‘blaze a trail’ by building near…

DUBAI -- Ken Livingstone, London’s occasionally controversial but always colourful former mayor, has some advice for Dubai and Abu Dhabi: get rid of the cars. “Huge financial centres” such as Dubai cannot rely on private cars for transport, said the architect of London’s congestion charge, speaking yesterday in Dubai as chairman of the World Architecture Congress, a programme running alongside Cityscape. “They need to have public transportation,” he said. “Dubai must recognise a modern financial district requires a majority of workers to use public transport.” Cities around the world, he said, were scrambling to get residents out of their cars and, if Dubai and Abu Dhabi were serious about becoming important global cities, they must do the same. "Mass transit is good for business, former London mayor says," The National, United Arab Emirates

UTAH -- One-third of north-Central Utah residents will want to live in a downtown setting or an area with urban amenities by 2040, according to the University of Utah's new director of metropolitan research. To meet that projected demand, Arthur C. Nelson said, 60 percent of all new residential development from Logan to Provo needs to be in or near downtown areas, or contained in suburban centers. The findings presented in the Wasatch Metropolitan Report indicate that there's an urgent need for planners, developers and government officials to work together to prepare for a shift from suburban neighborhoods to urban-style living, where residents can walk or use transit to get around as easily as by car. Downtown could be the place, Deseret News